A Healthy Dressing Recipe From L.A.’s Newest Feel-Good Cafe

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Honey Hi’s owners Caitlin Sullivan (left) and Kacie Carter.

By Crystal Meers

Nov. 3, 2016

Dietary dogma is so strong in Los Angeles that even Dodgers Stadium offers vegan and gluten-free options for fervent-but-sensitive gamegoers. And down the road at Honey Hi in Echo Park, Eastsiders are catching a new wave of nutrition. It’s not strictly vegetarian, vegan, paleo, raw, plant-based, ayurvedic or superfoodist. The restaurant’s guiding principle is what they call a radical inclusivity. But according to its co-owner Kacie Carter, a chef and nutritionist, Honey Hi isn’t a movement, it’s simply “a little cafe with delicious food that makes you feel good.”

Carter, 29, and her best friend Caitlin Sullivan, 28, opened the health-foodie destination in early October on prime Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. The two met as outspoken freshmen in a philosophy of religion class at the University of Colorado in 2006, and went on to lead high-stress lives: Carter as a fashion stylist in New York City and Sullivan as a producer in advertising. When burnout set in, they both quit their jobs and looked to nutrition to restore balance.

“We realized that changing the way we ate was the most powerful way to take care of ourselves,” says Carter. This meant dabbling in all sorts of disciplines from raw food to paleo and everything in between, and coming up with their own approach. “We wanted to take all of the best things from the philosophies that have inspired us and make it a welcoming place for everyone,” says Sullivan, whose father helped build out the space and whose mother, a longtime chef and caterer, oversaw the kitchen during opening week.

Honey Hi’s menu is sugar-free, GMO-free and gluten-free, and its grab-and-go cooler is stocked with local kombucha, small-batch fermented vegetables and house specialties like tiger nut horchata and pumpkin seed-almond milk spiked with matcha and moringa. The menu is packed with veg-forward smoothies loaded with adaptogens, heritage bone broth, ghee-laden toasts, grass-fed meat and sprouted grain bowls. “Many of the recipes are things that we make every day at home for ourselves and our friends,” says Sullivan. Like the miso bowl — a combination of jade rice, shredded cabbage, carrot ribbons, spicy cucumbers, daikon, green onion, cilantro, shredded pastured chicken, ginger chickpea miso and togarashi spiced almonds (there is a vegan option, of course).

In the coming months, they plan on expanding the breakfast menu to include a cherry açai bowl, almond and cassava flour pancakes, breakfast sandwiches and more egg dishes. Eventually, there really will be something for every diet.

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Honey Hi’s miso (top) and breakfast bowls.

Honey Hi Miso Bowl

Yield: 1 serving

Though this bowl is a delicious and filling vegetarian entree on its own, at Honey Hi, they add pulled chicken thigh or a poached egg for extra protein.